Bonnie Blue

[JDSquared]

Originally Posted by Mountain Gnome

I've been working on my bus at midnight. It drops to 80°F. I just hate having to use the headlamp to see. But working under the doghouse, I need to use a drop-lamp anyway, so not really a big deal...

I used to have my bus stored at a 24-hour place. Pretty decently lit up too. But I had to move it. And this gate locks at 10 pm. I was coming home at 10:30 last night wishing I could get in.

[JDSquared]

Jesus H Christ that took forever. I'm calling it done. Even though I need to fix a couple of welds in the front. And incorporate better wire management. But my solar panels are attached to the rack which is attached to the bus.

10 minutes of work in 95-degree heat. 20 minute break. 10 minutes of work.
That's when it wasn't raining.

Broken bits. worn out bits. Stripped screws. This was a long month plus.

[musigenesis]

Hell of a victory, my man!

[JDSquared]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Hell of a victory, my man!

I think I'll feel it once the battery and the BMS are squared away.

I did run my shop vac without the generator. Woohoo!

[JDSquared]

Forgot to add the photoAttachment 47472

[JDSquared]

But somehow I lost all the text when I added the photo.

Got my BMS wired correctly finally to the individual cells. I kept getting low voltage and 0 voltage readings. I still don't know why.

And I'm still not sure how to hook up the shunt. There's like three or four steps to follow according to some people on YouTube. But I couldn't try it without the power supply and the inverter and having the wires hooked up correctly.

Those three things are done. I can't wait to get this back into the electrical closet and have everything secured.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by JDSquared

Forgot to add the photoAttachment 47472

I get an "invalid attachment" when I click it.

[JDSquared]

LOL I guess I messed up that whole post!

At least my BMS is reading the battery voltage right now.

[JDSquared]

Starting to look like an electrical closet

[kazetsukai]

Wow, your electrical cabinet looks a lot like mine did when I first put it together. It'd still be that way honestly if I didn't have noise and space problems.

[JDSquared]

Almost done. I've got five breakers hooked up.

I kept forgetting to order the shore power inlet. That's supposed to come next week. And I keep forgetting to order a better fuse block. Hopefully I remember tonight.

That dark plywood is sweat just dripping down off me lol. I put the pink over the window and that helps a little bit. I'm not sure if AC is going to keep this closet cool or not.

Going to test the welder off the inverter this weekend.

[musigenesis]

I had the sweat problem when I was painting the front part of my floor. Sweat kept dripping off my head onto the part I was trying to paint, so I ended up having to contort myself at a weird angle and stick my arm way out to paint a part not under my head, then wipe up all the sweat around me and move over a foot. I'm not sure exactly sure what would actually happen if you had drops of salty water underneath a paint layer (like, maybe it would evaporate out before the paint cures?) but I didn't want to find out.

[JDSquared]

Fixed my blinker wires. Going to have to hide them in the trim because I couldn't feed them back in the channel.

[JDSquared]

One of my favorite things about having power now is being able to leave my 18v batteries charging.

And I must admit running the welder on a 20 amp breaker was so much better than that 13 amp generator.

[JDSquared]

Fabricated my own pieces today. Little supports to hold the angle iron up over the roof center. Only the rear piece is on a rib so the other two kind of push down on the roof a little bit. Hopefully the whole thing stays together when I'm driving. Going to test it soon with somebody following me.

[musigenesis]

Looking good, man, cool to see you fabricating stuff. I sure wish I had a 20 amp circuit available at my house for welding - I do have one but it's only for my shed which is in the back, far away from where I can park the bus. So it's 15 amps for me and multiple trips to the basement to flip the circuit breaker back on.

I'd be hesitant to have anything load-bearing pushing down on the roof unless it was over a rib or at least really close to one. If it's not actually deforming the roof, that probably means it isn't bearing any weight anyway.

[JDSquared]

Nah the angle iron bares most of the weight. Carries it to the steel tube on the sides. I just worry about flex when I hit a bump. this should be enough to keep the panels from bouncing. I don't know how much bounce they would of had anyway. But in my head it was a lot


I tripped a 15 amp breaker. Then remembered I had two 20 amps. No problem once I switched to one of those.

[JDSquared]

Okay I'm done here. I have more people blocked then I have threads that I'm subscribed to.

DM me your number if you want to keep up with my build and my life. I will text you back.

[musigenesis]

Hey man, I hope it wasn't my comment about something not being over a rib that sent you away.